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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Either those cardinals are taking one heckuva break for Camels, or they have just elected the next pope!

Watching it right now. Awesome scene at Saint Peter's Square. Now we just gotta learn who it is that's been voted on.

Whoever it is, may God's wisdom and grace be upon him. I'm not Catholic, but I appreciate my Catholic brethren's enthusiasm and I absolutely have to wish them and their new leader well :-)

"Habemus Papam!"

UPDATE 2:26 p.m. EST: Here's a pic of that white smoke going up!

UPDATE 2:44 p.m. EST: Lots of humor about this on Twitter right now. Thankfully none or very little of it seems to be vulgar :-)

UPDATE 3:15 p.m. EST:Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina is the new pope! A Jesuit from Argentina. I think that makes him the first "New World" pope.

UPDATE 3:20 p.m. EST: So his papal name will be "Pope Francis". Is that the first, second etc.?

UPDATE 3:36 p.m. EST: This will indeed be Pope Francis, first of his name. By all accounts an incredibly humble, compassionate and quiet man.

And here he is from a few moments ago, his first appearance as pope and giving the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to the crowd...

Update 4:15 p.m. EST: Lots of people are noting that Pope Francis' first words were to ask the people for their blessing, rather than bestow his blessing upon them. It was a gesture of remarkable humility.

I'm also hearing that before this Conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio refused to reside in the mansion reserved for the overseer of the Church in Argentina. Instead he chose to live in a quite modest apartment in Buenos Aires. He rode the public bus every day. Bergoglio even cooked dinner for himself.

A pope who does his own cooking? Now that is pretty cool :-)

Well, this is the second Conclave that this blog has tried to cover "as it happens", and Lord willing it will be quite a long time before I have to do it again. Congratulations to Pope Francis. Though I be not a Catholic, my prayers absolutely go out to him as he begins the task entrusted him.